(Originally
published 7/1/10)
Once upon
a time, I had a high school teacher. His name was Mr. Downes. He taught a
freshman-year course called "Asian and African Cultural Studies." Mr.
Downes was a congenial and entertaining fellow who frequently tickled the funny
bones of his young students. Sadly, though, I fear that this educator’s keen
sense of humor and wry wit would bomb on the contemporary school stage.
At some
point in the school year—1976-1977—we were studying the Southeast Asian country
of India and its independent founding in 1947. The nation’s first prime
minister was a man named
Jawaharlal Nehru, a Mahatma Gandhi disciple. He
is perhaps more renowned for inspiring a western fashion trend: the Nehru
jacket. Throughout Mr. Downes’ lectures on the subject matter—India’s fledgling
democracy, not sartorial predilections—he would speak in his normal tone of
voice, and at his normal pace, until he came to the polysyllabic Nehru first
name. Our teacher would then pause—
drum roll, please—and roll his tongue
with consummate comic timing. I wish I could spell what I heard, but since it
is near impossible, I will not even try. After this unique and brilliant
pronunciation of “Jawaharlal,” Mr. Downes would immediately return to his
natural speaking pattern and quietly say “Nehru.” It was something akin to the
late Victor Borge’s phonetic punctuation routine—conventionally reading aloud
from a book but supplying things like periods, commas, and question marks with
their own individual and expressive sounds.
If Mr. Downes
did any such thing today, a young snitch would no doubt turn him in. Above all else, schoolkids are trained in this duplicitous art at a very young age. He
would then be reprimanded by the overly sensitive and feckless powers-that-be
for not respecting another culture or even be accused of more nefarious crimes
against humanity. An investigation would then be launched.
Guess
what? Jawaharlal is an unusual name from our vantage point in the Land
of Tom, Dick, and Harry. Bet you cannot say Jawaharlal three times real
fast. If teachers in India or anywhere else on the planet want to make fun of
American surnames in their lectures, I say: More power to them! Laugh and
the whole world laughs with you. Cry and you cry alone in your safe
spaces!
